Esperancita

(Santo Domingo) – The Dominican Republic’s total ban on abortion threatens women's health and lives and violates their rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Abortion is illegal in the Dominican Republic in all circumstances, even when a pregnancy is life-threatening, unviable, or the result of rape.

The 78-page report, “‘It’s Your Decision, It’s Your Life’: The Total Criminalization of Abortion in the Dominican Republic,” documents that women and girls facing unwanted pregnancies have clandestine abortions, often at great risk to their health and lives. Many experience health complications from unsafe abortions, and some die. Some women and girls face abuse, neglect, or mistreatment by healthcare providers. The ban does not stop abortion but drives it underground and makes it less safe. As a starting place toward meeting the country’s human rights obligations, Congress should decriminalize abortion in three circumstances.

New report explores what total abortion ban means in the Dominican Republic

By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
Mon November 19, 2018

(CNN) A woman spoke of her 16-year-old daughter who died after being denied chemotherapy for leukemia because she was in the early weeks of pregnancy. A nurse described how a woman who was experiencing heavy bleeding after self-inducing an abortion was forced by medical providers to wait for treatment as "punishment" -- only to lose too much blood to be saved. An outreach worker remembered the mentally disabled 14-year-old girl who became pregnant at 12, probably by her father, and received no care.

Stories like these are revealed in a new Human Rights Watch report, released Monday, that focuses on the effect of a total government ban on abortions in the Dominican Republic.

SANTO DOMINGO — While politicians in Arizona debate the possibility of more regulations on abortions, in the Dominican Republic, in contrast, the debate centers on its legalization. But recent pro-life policies in the United States could reverse course for Dominican health services.

Near the boisterous Washington Avenue in Santo Domingo, a battling women’s rights organization is in hiding.

La Colectiva Mujer y Salud looks like any other house — for a reason. It had to remove its name from the facade after receiving threats from those who oppose its cause.

La Colectiva, as some people call it, has been on the front line of a struggle to decriminalize abortion. The Dominican Republic is currently one of the six countries in the world where a woman can go to jail for getting an abortion — and so can whoever helps, including doctors.